[Ubuntu-US-CA] REVIEW: Quick Assessment of Canonical's Landscape Management tool for Ubuntu Infrastructures

[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On 10/12/07, Steve George <steve.george at canonical.com> wrote:
> Just to clarify Landscape is available Free (no charge) during the beta
> period.  You can register for a trial here:
> http://www.canonical.com/contact/forms/landscape
>
> What we ask is that users provide feedback. We want to make Landscape an
> outstanding service for systems administrators, so we need them to tell
> us what's great, what needs further work and what they'd like to see in
> the future.
>
> As you noted it's also available for customers who've purchased a
> support contract from Canonical.

Will the landscape-server package ever be released to the public so
that institutions such as education will not need to subscribe to use
it?  For instance, my friend David Terrell at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst would like to make use of Landscape for the
IBM-sponsored Linux lab there.  However, the budget for such things is
very small.  I think that there would be a great benefit in allowing
educational institutions access to this tool at no charge.  The
benefits are that if universities adopt Ubuntu, Canonical stands to
gain a larger consumer base.  Presumably this is good for your
company.  Additionally, I think that students are genuinely excited
and will provide the best feedback on your Landscape product.

And just to make it clear, I already heard a grumbling that "this is
starting to look like Red Hat network".  It is my hope that you will
consider always keeping Landscape available at no charge to academic
institutions.  And if the cost on your end would be too high, how
about releasing an open source version of landscape-server so that
Universities could run it on their end without utilizing Canonical
resources (polling, updating, etc).  When I attended UMass, we really
sparked a high adoption rate for Linux on campus.  In fact, many
people will tell you about the infamous Steve Ballmer event when he
came to town and we dressed up as penguins for his arrival.  There is
a video on google somewhere of this (but we missed Ballmer).  The
members are very active both inside and outside of school, and there
is a wealth of talent here.

Please follow-up and let us know what your plans are for Landscape.
Many of us are very excited about the offering :-)
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen